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Wednesday, December 2, 2015

After numerous rounds of editing and months of waiting, Daughter of Zeus is now available for pre-orders on the Champagne Book Group website.

Synopsis:

The future can be a terrifying prospect, especially when Ada Freyr discovers she can manipulate electricity. Ada is grief-stricken when her abilities result in the death of her husband. and terrified of being discovered by the Prominent-run State. Unusual citizens are labeled Undesirable, and are never seen again.

Ada drives to Atlanta, intent on finding her father. She blames everything that’s happened on him, and vows to kill him for ruining her life. However, once Ada meets her father, she realizes he’s no longer the alcoholic she remembers: he’s now a Congressman with a family and a new name, ready for a Senator’s seat.

Ada’s scheme lands her on the Undesirable list, leads a stranger to stalk her, and stunts her relationship with her siblings. Soon, she has to decide which is more important: a vendetta, or forgiveness.

Join the giveaway below for a chance to win an e-copy and a $15 Amazon giftcard!

Saturday, August 22, 2015

While reading Parmasad, I thought about tone and voice. Many of
the students I tutor value what they call "objective writing", and
many pride themselves on the ability to write for a nameless audience. I tell
these same students that even though it's academic writing, it's still writing,
and writing should never be boring (a.k.a. voiceless). Good intentions aside,
writing to the god of the nameless usually leads to a nameless tone in the
writing, and there's no "there" there.

In writing a scholarly personal narrative (or a SPN), one injects
personal experience into a larger academic conversation. Thus, to
"signify" in a SPN, a writer need not adhere to an autobiographical
format, because focusing on specific moments in time as they relate to bigger
issues can be just as impactful, (Nash 30). Parmasad displays the effectiveness
of SPNs when writing of the cultural disconnect she experienced while growing
up as an Indian in Trinidad. Putting moments of her life under the microscope,
Parmasad analyzes the importance of writing: "this remarkable exclusion,
this invisibility, this feeling of voicelessness filled me with a maddening
need to use my writing not as a shield but as a weapon to contest the
historical marginalization of a whole people and the negation of my
experiences" (135). From her viewpoint, writing is a tool to challenge the
cultural limits and bring others to a higher level of understanding.

In my estimation, an SPN is essential to academia because a
properly executed SPN will delve into the "raw marrow" of the
writer's life, while bringing the validity of the experience to the forefront
of a larger framework, (Nash 26). Developing confidence in writing often goes
hand in hand with constructing a narrative, as writers glean key concepts
after a re-telling of their experiences. Writing narratives can never be counterproductive,
as I'm of the mindset that every high school student should write an SPN, and
then again as an undergrad, and thenagain
times again. Much like Nash's idolization of Kimble, the fugitive who
reinvents his story in weekly episodic arcs, all writers should endeavor to
find their ever-evolving voice to establish meaning (34-35).

Art can be lost if it cannot be understood. An important aspect in
writing involves connections and how they're made. To sustain a connection, the
language must be effective, and what better use of language as a learning tool utilizing your
own voice? As an undergrad, many students are required to write a narrative
essay, with no research or larger connection necessary. In contrast, writing an
SPN is similar to cutting out a part of oneself, laying it across a table, and
magnifying the meaning to fit a larger context. Both types of writing have a
purpose, but at differing points in an academic career, an SPN ismorepurposeful. In fact, several drafts into
either, new voice and meaning can be found..

Sunday, July 19, 2015

If you enjoy free books like I do, you have the chance to win a copy of A Gray Life, now through July 25th.

The giveaway is featured on , so click here to activate the good luck monkeys!

As an added bonus, I'm giving away three e-copies of A Gray Life from my blog. To enter, all you have to do is email me or comment below.Tell me about the first book you read and why it was special to you.

The first chapter book I read was from The Babysitter Club series. I can't remember the exact book, but I can remember the static joy that came after. When I finished the last page, I jumped up from the couch and grabbed my mom, full of the largest sense of accomplishment my 2nd grade self had ever held.

Monday, May 18, 2015

It's an understatement to say the Internet is littered with bloggers and book reviewers, especially when the sentiment is coming from a blogger! However, blogger Cassie Sparks is different from the rest of the herd because of a few things:

1. She doesn't charge for reviews or promotions.2. She's open to reviewing most genres, except for Westerns (sorry, Westerns).3. Her response-time is quick (for the time being until she becomes too popular for her own good!)4. She supports indie authors. From her mouth:

I am a full-time mom of boys, nursing student, and professional reader/reviewer. I love to read anything and everything but usually shy away from westerns. I love helping out authors, especially up and coming authors. Feel free to contact me for reviews. I will let you know a general timeline on when to expect my review. I will post reviews here, goodreads, amazon, smashwords, and audible if an audiobook.

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Micro loans. They're presented as a benevolent force, especially the NGO's operating in Bangladesh. Most forms of capital, i.e. loans, have been traditionally denied to the poor, who had no collateral to offer. However, micro loans in Bangladesh are offered without the expectation of collateral, barring the strategic use of honor and shame.

According to Lamia (1998), honor and shame already play a heavy role in Bangladesh society, beginning with women. Honor is an exemplarary asset to wield in rural Bangladesh, and can be measured and lost by how honorable a woman behaves. Even as micro loans are offered to women, Lamia (1998)concludes that over 90% of the loans are used by the men of the household. Therefore, the practice of lending money to rural women under the pretense of economic freedom seems a bit misleading, further complicated by the issue of shame.

As theorized by Spradley & McCurdy (2009), philanthropic efforts and/or gifts, usually come with unseen strings attached. With micro loans, the unseen string is shame. To lose face, or experience shame, in Bangladesh is something a family might not recover from. Since women are the extensions of family honor, and therefore shame, when the loans are not paid on time, shame is a powerful instrument used by NGO's to secure a return on their investment. Lamia (1998) goes into detail about how women are shamed into paying back their debt: spitting on them as they go by, pulling their hair, hitting, cursing them publicly. Lamia (1998) suggests that the 98% repayment of micro loans can be viewed in a whole new way when shaming is considered.

Overall, micro loans in Bangladesh have positives and negatives, but mostly negatives. One positive thing about the micro loans would be the 50-60% interest, compared to that of rural loans, which can inflate to 120% interest (Lamia, 1998). Many negatives attached to micro loans stem from the revolving sides of honor and shame. If not for those two societal elements already present in the society of Bangladesh, the high success rate in repayments would probably be a lot lower than it is.

Read more about micro loans here.OrWatch the documentary Women's Bank of Bangladesh.

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Recently, Obsolution was selected as one of four Honorable Mentions for both the 2014 Diverse Writers and Diverse Worlds Grants.

The jurors said of the story:We enjoyed your piece very much. One of our jurors said, "Engaging and addictive. I didn't want to stop reading."Read Obsolution for free via the Wattpad website, or by downloading the Wattpad app to your phone (works much like Amazon's Kindle app, and thousands of free books are offered).

Not only that, but HCF editor Stephanie Andrusjak expressed a positiveresponse to my work, and suggested I query Tor. I've queried many a publishing house, but I've yet to try Tor. Today is as good a day as any for a fresh query...!